The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Altar” it comes from the Hebrew Word “mizbeach” which means “altar, a place of sacrifice.”
God calls Jacob back to the place where it all began. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Genesis 35.
God tells Jacob to return to Bethel and build an altar there, the same place he dreamed of the ladder years earlier. Jacob tells his household to put away their foreign gods and purify themselves first. He buries these idols under a tree, and builds the altar at Bethel, where God appears to him again, confirming his new name, Israel, and repeating the covenant promise of land and descendants. The Hebrew word for altar is “mizbeach,” a place set apart for sacrifice and worship.
As the family travels on, Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin, Jacob’s twelfth son, near Bethlehem. With great sorrow, Jacob buries her along the way and sets up a pillar over her grave.
The chapter closes with a troubling incident involving Reuben, and then a list of Jacob’s twelve sons. Finally, Isaac dies at 180 years old, and Jacob and Esau bury him together, echoing how Isaac and Ishmael once buried Abraham.
It is also worth noting everything Jacob experiences in this single chapter, worship, mourning, and loss all within a short span. He buries the idols his household still carried, buries his beloved Rachel along the road, and eventually buries his father Isaac as well. Genesis 35 is, in many ways, the chapter where Jacob’s long, turbulent middle years finally begin settling into the quieter responsibilities of a family patriarch.
Jacob had to go back to Bethel, the place of his first encounter with God, in order to move forward faithfully. Sometimes returning to where God first met us, and clearing away whatever we have been carrying alongside Him, is exactly what renewal requires.
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